and chastely kiss winners on the cheek
at major international sporting events.
Either that, or they exude glamour on
the sidelines—handing out leaflets,
welcoming VIPs and in some sports
(such as boxing), serving as human
message-boards, sashaying across the
ring, holding cards that tell the crowd
what round it is. (In the circumstances,
it might be more useful for them to
point out what century it is.)
The problem is that unlike, say,
cheerleaders at sports fixtures, who at
least combine beauty and whirling
pom-poms with their own skillful
brand of athleticism, podium girls are
all about smiling passivity. Silent,
obliging, submissive, this is glamour
writ with the smallest, sweetest ‘g’
imaginable. A glamour that knows its
place, and doesn’t bite back or
demand respect, or even seem toS
ome may be blissfully unaware
of the existence of so-called
‘podium girls’, who are still a
regular sight at an array of major
European sports events. Even those
who are only vaguely aware of their
existence may have assumed that they
were phased out at some point in the
1970s—along with bikini-clad women
reclining uncomfortably on bonnets of
Winnebagos at car shows.
You may be surprised to learn that
the archaic culture of podium girls
(otherwise known as ‘grid girls’, ‘walk-
on girls’ and sometimes the more
decorous-sounding ‘tour hostesses’) is
far from dead and buried. In fact, in
some places, it’s hanging on as stub-
bornly as ever.
For the uninitiated, podium girls are
the young women who have traditio-
nally been brought on to present prizesKiss Them Goodbye
The spectacle of podium girls at big sporting events is
an outdated chauvinist throwback. It’s time to end it
IN MY OPINION
By Barbara EllenReader’s Digest
24 september 2019